I don't get it! On a basic level I can kind of understand experiencing fear of the unknown. I have felt that before. Instead of allowing that fear to dictate how I reacted to an unknown thing, instead I chose to educate myself, learn all I could before I forced myself to confront that fear. An example of this would be when I was diagnosed with Psoriatic arthritis, a form of RA. A very cold and clinical doctor gave the diagnosis and my prognosis, ending with telling me I would ultimately die from it. Who wouldn't be terrified with that kind of delivery of bad news?!?!?! I went home and cried, panicked and then began to research it and my options. Yes, someday I might die from complications of it, but there is so much I can do to prolong my life, hold it at bay and live a half way normal life.
This past Sunday I learned of, and since have seen the segments, a show on Fox News called Fox and Friends. I quit watching Fox News years ago when I began to notice it was more of yellow bellied journalism with a twist of an agenda I didn't quite like. I prefer my news to be totally unbiased, factual and true. That is just me. Fox News wasn't factual or unbiased. So I quit watching it and after Sundays little bashing segment, I will never watch it again.
Here is the deal. I follow a spiritual path that is not Christianity. It really can't be labeled accurately because it has elements of many religions and spiritual paths in it. Unfortunately though society thinks everything has to have a label and pigeon holed in order to exist. The closest I can come to a label for my path is Wicca. I am more into Earth based spirituality than anything. So for all intents and purposes according to society I am Wiccan.
I was raised in Christianity. My mom was Church of Christ and my dad was a Methodist. But I have to make this clear, the Christianity I grew up in is NOT what most people practice today. There was no hatred, bigotry or excluding those who did not become cookie cutter versions of what their Christian church said they should be. It was about love and acceptance, treating others as you wanted to be treated and helping others without strings attached. There was no concern about your wardrobe, how new your car was, how fancy your house was or your income. It was about following the core teaching of Jesus who taught love, acceptance and concern for your fellow man. There was no skin color or religious differentiation or sexual orientation involved.
I can't pinpoint one exact thing or time when Christianity began to feel not right to me. It was a combination of things really. I have a very scientific, factual mind and as I got older I began to have questions. I was actually sent home from one Sunday school class with a request to my parents to not send me back. I had asked a question the teacher couldn't answer so she sent me to the minister whose response was 'because the Bible says so'. Of course that just brought up more questions he obviously, in retrospect, couldn't answer and 'because the Bible says so' didn't compute to me. As a young adult I was baptized in the Disciples of Christ church. I have to say the minister at that time was awesome! We had many discussions that we both enjoyed the challenge of finding answers to my questions. An unfortunate side effect of our discussions though was he began to question the level of his own faith. I have since found out he left the ministry to pursue other interests. I hope he found something that made him genuinely happy!
You could label me as a rebel I suppose. But my choice of spiritual path is not a form of rebellion against main stream Christianity. My form of rebellion is more along the lines of the fact I am a free thinker and refuse to be labeled as a conservative or liberal, a Republican or Democrat. I refuse to believe that there is nothing that can be done to get the government back to where it should be. I refuse to believe the crap that comes from the mouths of politicians whose main agenda is how much money they can get from their lobbyists for supporting their cause. Probably the most important point of my rebelliousness is I refuse to allow others to tell me how I have to live, think and believe.
I have friends of all religions, spiritual paths, races and cultures. We respect each other despite our differences. Something you don't see much of at all anymore in our country. Do I believe all Muslims are evil as our media would have us believe? No. I can not justify that mind set. Do I believe all Christians are evil based on the actions of a few like Jim Jones, David Koresh and those preachers we all hear on TV now who tell us to hate gays? No. There are evil people who operate under the guise of a religious belief to justify their evil. And then there are people who emulate the actions and beliefs of those evil people. Does that make those people evil? Not necessarily if they learn from the experience and move on beyond it to propagate good in this world.
Last night after I watched this clip from Fox and Friends I was so upset! My stomach hurt and my head hurt from it. And then I began to analyze what was said versus the truth. It is plainly obvious not a single person at Fox News could be bothered to even look up and learn about what they were discussing. It made the three people look like the totally uneducated bigots they are! The clip shown from another show wasn't even played as it was made. I also found that segment and watched it today too. The two people in that clip are just as big of bigots as the first three. But the thing I particularly picked up on is the whole thing was done from a skewed Christian view of this supposed 'war on Christianity' they are spouting about now. A 'war' I personally have never seen. If they want to say 'Merry Christmas' I don't care two flips. As long as it is said with a smile and warmth it thrills me that someone said something nice and positive to me! Let's face it, at that time of the year there is very little niceness or warmth anymore between people.
Here is the deal. I follow a spiritual path that is not Christianity. It really can't be labeled accurately because it has elements of many religions and spiritual paths in it. Unfortunately though society thinks everything has to have a label and pigeon holed in order to exist. The closest I can come to a label for my path is Wicca. I am more into Earth based spirituality than anything. So for all intents and purposes according to society I am Wiccan.
I was raised in Christianity. My mom was Church of Christ and my dad was a Methodist. But I have to make this clear, the Christianity I grew up in is NOT what most people practice today. There was no hatred, bigotry or excluding those who did not become cookie cutter versions of what their Christian church said they should be. It was about love and acceptance, treating others as you wanted to be treated and helping others without strings attached. There was no concern about your wardrobe, how new your car was, how fancy your house was or your income. It was about following the core teaching of Jesus who taught love, acceptance and concern for your fellow man. There was no skin color or religious differentiation or sexual orientation involved.
I can't pinpoint one exact thing or time when Christianity began to feel not right to me. It was a combination of things really. I have a very scientific, factual mind and as I got older I began to have questions. I was actually sent home from one Sunday school class with a request to my parents to not send me back. I had asked a question the teacher couldn't answer so she sent me to the minister whose response was 'because the Bible says so'. Of course that just brought up more questions he obviously, in retrospect, couldn't answer and 'because the Bible says so' didn't compute to me. As a young adult I was baptized in the Disciples of Christ church. I have to say the minister at that time was awesome! We had many discussions that we both enjoyed the challenge of finding answers to my questions. An unfortunate side effect of our discussions though was he began to question the level of his own faith. I have since found out he left the ministry to pursue other interests. I hope he found something that made him genuinely happy!
You could label me as a rebel I suppose. But my choice of spiritual path is not a form of rebellion against main stream Christianity. My form of rebellion is more along the lines of the fact I am a free thinker and refuse to be labeled as a conservative or liberal, a Republican or Democrat. I refuse to believe that there is nothing that can be done to get the government back to where it should be. I refuse to believe the crap that comes from the mouths of politicians whose main agenda is how much money they can get from their lobbyists for supporting their cause. Probably the most important point of my rebelliousness is I refuse to allow others to tell me how I have to live, think and believe.
I have friends of all religions, spiritual paths, races and cultures. We respect each other despite our differences. Something you don't see much of at all anymore in our country. Do I believe all Muslims are evil as our media would have us believe? No. I can not justify that mind set. Do I believe all Christians are evil based on the actions of a few like Jim Jones, David Koresh and those preachers we all hear on TV now who tell us to hate gays? No. There are evil people who operate under the guise of a religious belief to justify their evil. And then there are people who emulate the actions and beliefs of those evil people. Does that make those people evil? Not necessarily if they learn from the experience and move on beyond it to propagate good in this world.
Last night after I watched this clip from Fox and Friends I was so upset! My stomach hurt and my head hurt from it. And then I began to analyze what was said versus the truth. It is plainly obvious not a single person at Fox News could be bothered to even look up and learn about what they were discussing. It made the three people look like the totally uneducated bigots they are! The clip shown from another show wasn't even played as it was made. I also found that segment and watched it today too. The two people in that clip are just as big of bigots as the first three. But the thing I particularly picked up on is the whole thing was done from a skewed Christian view of this supposed 'war on Christianity' they are spouting about now. A 'war' I personally have never seen. If they want to say 'Merry Christmas' I don't care two flips. As long as it is said with a smile and warmth it thrills me that someone said something nice and positive to me! Let's face it, at that time of the year there is very little niceness or warmth anymore between people.
But please don't be offended and get bent out of shape if I respond according to my beliefs with "And a Happy Yule to you!". Because if you were to really do some research, and with the internet it is a very easy thing to do, you would find that the Catholic church, in order to bring the 'heathens and pagans' into the fold incorporated the pagan celebration of Yule and called it Christmas. Same with Easter and Ostra and several other pagan celebrations.
While I can be labeled as a Wiccan,I do not practice witchcraft as most people think of it. I do pray. Prayers and spells are exactly the same as far as intent and energy go, they just have different trappings. Essentially what you are doing is sending energy out in order to affect a change. So if you send out a request for prayer, I do pray for you in what you would consider a traditional way. I don't put curses or hexes on people simply because I believe the intent of the energies you put out come back to you. Send out negative, you get negative back. Send out positive and you get positive back. Just like karma. Which comes from a totally different belief system by the way. Look it up. LOL
Here is the segment that shows them essentially bashing Wicca and proving they had no facts at all to go off of:
Fox News bashing Wiccans
Here is the segment they used parts of in a manner not consistent with the way it was intended:
Another video of Fox News bashing Wicca
Although I could have gone on a real rip-tooting rant about this, I am not going to. But I will leave you with a video of a young woman who makes a blow by blow commentary as she watching the bashing videos. She did a lot better job of containing her outrage and anger than I did!
Attention FOX NEWS
Namaste all!
Although I could have gone on a real rip-tooting rant about this, I am not going to. But I will leave you with a video of a young woman who makes a blow by blow commentary as she watching the bashing videos. She did a lot better job of containing her outrage and anger than I did!
Attention FOX NEWS
Namaste all!
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